by K. G. Wilkie
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Manhunt
He yelled, “Find me that blasted nymph!” Here in the King`s Hall, with a long red carpet laid out on the floor that led up to the platform he was now sitting on, he normally indulged in a bit of daydreaming and serious thought about his future rule, but there was no time for such childishness today. A daemon bustled up to him and bowed ingratiatingly. “But, highness, you sent her on a mission to find her missing sister. She’s long since out of the palace by now. He eyed his master calmly, confident that the man was all bark and no bite, or at least he was to those daemon associates of his.
“Well, get her back here! Or get someone else here! On the double!”
“I’m afraid that isn’t possible sire. You could choose to summon her here, however, if you so wish,” he added.
“I do not wish! You know darned well that there are limits to that spell, and I’ve already traveled too much today.”
The other shrugged and added that it was unfortunate, but that meant they’d have to send a messenger to contact the girl and that could take a few days, so an immediate audience would still be impossible. “I don’t care! Hawthorne, get her back here now. I need her.” The two daemons grinned and stalked out of the hall while the servants in the chamber scrambled out behind them. “Why can’t I get any decent help around here,” he grumbled and sank into the sumptuous cushions on the throne. He smiled a little ruefully, glad to get to sit in the rarely opened room, and cheered up a little.“I should dock their vacation to only three months of leave.”
“You can`t really blame them,” a voice called out from the corner. “I don`t respect you either, oh brother mine,” Richard said.
“I see you still love to lurk, Richard. Always the eavesdropper. All your fans call you the ‘Sun Prince,’ did you know,”? Aeron spoke, eyes closed. “So bright and shining. I feel that must help your delicate ego.”
Richard walked up so that he was sitting on his own plush throne. “You aren`t really supposed to use this room so casually,” he answered. “This is a ‘hall of dignity’, the ‘realm`s lifeblood’. Something that dramatic shouldn`t be used for your afternoon nap,” he added in reprove.
“It`s tiring enough when father says that,” Aeron returned. “Besides, you`re hardly one to talk. Aren`t princes ‘meant to uphold the dignity and moral character of the crown’? Why, I`m sure you don`t even remember where your actual bedroom is, you use it so rarely,” he continued.
“At least I carry out my duties,” Richard replied haughtily.
“Yes, that`s true, isn`t it?” Aeron smiled. “But you know he`ll back me on this one, like most other things,” he spoke with a sickeningly sugary voice. “You may be the favorite of the people, but I`m the eldest and the son of his one true love,” he continued proudly. “You have love from everyone in our world except for from the father you so crave it of. I suppose that will comfort me while my brother continues to try to get me killed or dethroned.”
Richard grinned and sauntered away. “Yeppers. In fact, brother dearest, did I hear you accurately earlier? It sounded like you were trying to sabotage my virtuous plans to sabotage you.”
“I don’t see why it’s any of your business why I do what I do,” the crown prince sneered. “You are the second son. You have less power than the weakest of my followers. You are insignificant,” he added.
The younger prince just smirked. “Right you are. But remember, I may be weaker but I have other traits. For one thing being the most beloved man in the king means I have much fewer enemies than you. Besides, I’m smarter, and legitimate, and full of charm and poise that makes all of our kingdom fall over their feet to rush to serve me. Face it, you are a half baked failure. Father will always support my efforts as his sweetest and most beloved son no matter how he feels about me personally.” He smiled and stopped pacing to look back at the crown prince. He whispered, “How can mere Aeron compare? So cold, so mean. Always in the shadow of his brother. Who loves little Aeron? Not his father who loves him so much but ignores him. Not his mother who abandoned him. Not even the girl who once promised to love him forever and ever can even stand the sight of him now.”
Aeron leapt and pulled his sibling into a headlock. He quickly cast of his human glamor and took on his full size that compared to an apartment building and easily smothered the other boy. “I could kill you now,” he whispered with a deadly squeeze. “One move and I could quiet those poisonous lips forever. One twist and all the people will be forced to accept me,” he whispered.Richard panted, lungs compressed by the sheer weight and size of his giant brother as his own true form was slighter than even a human. “Just one twist and I won’t have to worry about your spiteful whispers and acts of rebellion. Who would dare to pledge allegiance to your corpse when I’d still be alive and powerful and oh so very present?”
“I could shift,” the pinned man retorted. His cool veneer had long since melted away as he tried to hammer at the restraining, but oddly gentle, grip. A blue haze flickered along his form, and his shape gradually shifted to a towering dragon.
His brother merely laughed, a tiny figure on top of the snake like form. “As could I,” was the calm reply. I have two true forms, and as you know this is the smaller one. Don’t you think it would be easy for me to completely smother you if I stood here as a two hundred foot tall dragon? He looked down at the figure he straddled which was a mere handful of stories tall and rapidly shifted his own form to crush it. “You may have forgotten, but I`m a solid two hundred feet longer than you, and fifty wider. Let alone the fact that I`m definitely stronger than a dragon who spends all his time in human form flipping through books.” Fully shifted his red scales gleamed in the faint light as he stretched out to his monstrous proportions. What`s more, his claws and horns looked fiercer, his form more European than the slim and delicate wyrm beneath him.
“My studies of the arcane are far more advanced than yours. I could destroy you in seconds before you had the time to move,” Richard gasped as the weight pressing on him became unbearable.
“I can use magic well enough to freeze a squirt like you, and then all I`d have to do is smoosh you,” the elder retorted. He demonstrated by grabbing his sibling in a headlock.
Richard was blue in the face but still stared stonily ahead, refusing to give in to the crushing pressure. His brother sighed and released him. “That is how we are different, you know. I care about you and don’t actually wish to kill you. I would wish that we could get along, be friendly, have movie marathons and pick up ice cream and travel the worlds. It’s very unfortunate that you’d prefer to see me dead or deposed when I still can’t help but think of you toothlessly grinning at me and begging for a piggy back ride as a hatchling.”
“I could still probably beat you in my original form. I’m not powerful but I’m very clever,” Richard muttered.
The prince just laughed that away and melted back into his human guise. “You could do some damage, but your shift is very slow and I could still stop you before you’d had the chance to do anything at all. I am not as skilled in my lessons but it would still be easy to smother a squirt like you.” He held up a hand to the other’s protest. “Never mind all of that now though, I can see I can’t talk sense into you yet. We have other priorities that require our focus anyways.”
They glared at each other. Both finally stomped away from the other at the same time.
“I’m to check on the doings of the little spy Darien,” Aeron announced. “Maybe I’ll get to lop off a head or two while I’m at it if I’m very lucky.”
The other laughed. “You were wrong, before. There’s the difference right there,” Richard said. “You joke of violence but are so peaceful and forgiving. I joke of peace and forgiveness and kill the first who dares to betray me.” He started his own transport spell, a weak grey mist that moved more slowly than his brother’s. “I suppose I’ll check on Jacqueline while I’m at it.
The other rolled his eyes. “Well, now I def
initely can’t call her back to deal with that wizard if he’s going to be pushing her to do some side project that will distract her,” he muttered. He frowned and sent a note off to both of his daemons to cancel the summons for the girl.
It would have been impossible to find them anyways as the nymph and search team were deep in uncharted forest.
“I smell it,” he said. The infamous werewolf, Blutnase, was a hard man to ignore when he bothered to speak. He and the other members of the team tasked with finding the missing dryad Priscilla for the benefit of Jackie’s nerves were all whittled down by training so that even the most easy going amongst them had long since lost any spare flesh or spare humor. All the men on the search and rescue team had weather beaten skin adorned with terrifying battle scars. The observer was forced to wonder if the girl, upon seeing her rescuers, might instead prefer her kidnappers or attackers over the terrifying he man squad before them.
The problem with them wasn’t really the appearance of the rag tag mixture of mercenaries and loyal soldiers of the crown. The most scary aspect of the group was their constant indulgences in violence. Some of them were part of the faction that remained loyal to the crown prince’s claim to the throne in light of his previous years of showing awareness of the situations of the people and his previous attempts to stand for their economics and needs before the board of elders convened to revise the laws, or because they were impressed by his shows of skill on the battle field and in performance tourneys. Others were loyal to Richard, charmed by the attention of the prince who chose to ride along with them on this trip and his ready humor or impressed by his knowledge of all the things and people of interest in the almost forgotten past and weren’t particularly concerned by his lack of interest in their livelihood and how well they could afford their taxes. It would be plain for any onlooker listening in to these common soldier’s conversations why the princes who were so long compared to each other and always told to be found wanting would grow to dislike each other. At the very least the different members of the search team grew to resent each other after just a few days of discussing their competing loyalties, just like the different factions of the kingdom’s frequent fights had sneaked in and poisoned the conversations and relationships of folks on either side of the division across the realm. It was no great wonder that the fight had frayed the relationship between the two possible heirs so much, nor that the soldierly types in the search party frequently gained new battle scars, hardly an endearing combination.
“The problem with that, of course,” Jackie thought, “Is that those conflicting allegiances have started almost daily skirmishes and fights and very effectively distracted the men from putting their full efforts into locating her missing sister.”
Already this day looked like a repeat of previous disasters. A few in the back were once more growling and conversing in steadily increasing volumes. It was hardly an hour past leaving camp in the morning and they were already all rearing to go at each other.
Curious, the other men in the team gravitated to the fighting faction, increasing the hostilities. She sighed in defeat. It was hardly a full hour since they had left camp and they were already rearing to go.
She sighed. With an air of grumpiness over the ruination of her carefully laid out plans she started casting through the packs stacked up on the packhorse until she found her own bag and slung it over her shoulder. After yesterday’s fiasco she had decided to prepare herself to search on her own at the first sign of continued conflict. It was just impossible to efficiently search this way. She wasn’t willing to introduce such hotheads to her defenseless little sister and risk upsetting her delicate nerves anyways so it was time to accept the risk to her own safety and go it alone. Besides, family was more important than worrying over the details of politics any day in her mind. She made a promise last night huddled by the campfire and doing her best to roll out of the way each time a wrestling match started up and an opponent threatened to topple over and crush her that today she’d prepare to search on her own at the first sign of shenanigans. When yet another little squabble broke out in the ranks she was ready to act. She quietly slipped away from the group, dodging a fist or two on her way out of the train. She made good time through the dense underbrush, the gift of her heritage allowing her to ask each little bush and bramble to move out of her path, and the fruit trees to feed her when it came time for lunch.
A lone person was much less efficient in searching an area, and more likely to miss small details, but it would surely be worse to have endless conflicts distracting the official search party from actually getting any work done at all. What she wouldn’t give to have had a team of actually focused and useful searchers- but it was no use wishing for the impossible instead of using her time to do what was within her reach here and now. After several rather uninspiring interviews with the local trees, however, she found that they were a rather wooly minded lot, and of little use for her search. At least they were more than capable of sharing some fascinating forest gossip she stored away in her memory banks for later review. She was casting around for the imprint of any magical essences that may have been left by her sister’s passage through the area or physical signs of the steps of her captors or any little bits that might have been left behind by a larger party of kidnappers until she finally ran out of hope that she’d find any evidence herself. She braced herself to speak to the silly trees again to try to wring something useful from their memories when a hand grabbed her from behind.
She spun in a drop kick, and another hand grabbed her other arm and pulled her flush to a large body behind her. She struggled and kicked uselessly at her captor until she noticed how very pale the arms holding her were. A charmed vine rose by her power and rapidly wrapped around her attacker’s arms and torso, and they swiftly pulled apart to break her captor’s arms.
At his grunt of pain she laughed and turned to face him. “It hurts, doesn’t it,” she said. “Little woman all alone in the woods must be so weak,” she taunted, “But I guess you were wrong about that.” Another vine rose to twine about his ankle and pull at it so he fell on the ground. “See, I don’t like people attacking me. I tend to get pretty angry when that happens.” A briar hedge rapidly grew to encircle them like a green wall.
He merely glanced at the barrier in puzzlement. “It`s to fend off any friends you might be hiding nearby and deter any backup you may have,” she answered, another briar covering her from such attackers as well. Hers, however, had all its thorn on the outside, and not one on the inside, whereas he often winced with any tiny movement that brought the cruel blades bearing upon his flesh. “Now, what`s up with the stalking habit, Mr. Vamp?”
He just continued looking impressed at the greenery. “I wouldn’t have thought that witches could compel plants like this. I thought they normally just used them in their spells and potions,” he mused. “Maybe you are more charming in multiple ways then I first guessed,” he gave a roguish grin.
“Who said I was a witch,” she gasped. “There’s no need for insults like that. It’s an especially stupid act as it appears you tried to flirt with me,” she looked at him with a quelling and uniquely feminine derision. “Needless to say, with lines like that you are doomed to fail.”
He ticked the identifying points off his fingers. “Well, there’s no feeling of my helplessness to your enchanting beauty, so you obviously can’t be a nymph or sorceress or high fey woman.”
“I resent that commentary on my looks,” she frowned at him.
He blithely ignored her. “If you were a dragon your magic would have been done in the form of a flame, if you were a harpy you’d have wings and no skill at hiding them, daemons have horns, centaurs have horse parts, faeries and sprites have wings, and every other creature has distinguishing features of the scent of an illusion. I smell no illusions so this is clearly your true form so I know you must be a human. And yet you used a spell of some sort so you must not be a Mundane human. That means the only thing left is that you ar
e a witch.” He paused. “I suppose you could be a rebel alchemist as well, but they tend to move in packs and their magic is a rather distinct scent of chaos from combining so many different magical traditions and you just smell rather plain.”
“Are you done insulting me?” she asked quietly, alarmingly sweet. She walked up to his imprisoned form, jabbing his still bloody nose with a finger. Ignoring his pained wince she continued, “Look, buddy. You`ve just insulted me, your captor, in every way that matters. What kind of idiot does that?”
“This kind,” he grinned mischievously. “Might I add, though, that I`ve only mentioned your appearance. I`m hoping your brain may be up to par, but I`ve gotta say this conversation doesn`t make that outcome seem to likely.”
Jackie actually growled. “Look buddy,” she poked a finger in his face, “Just because you are dense doesn’t mean I have to be. Vamps don’t necessarily know everything, you know. See that tree?” The tree obligingly waved its branch at them both. “If you were paying attention at all, you would have noticed I was talking to it. Since when have any kind of humans been able to talk to a tree? Heck, when has any type of anything been able to talk to a tree besides a nymph?”I don’t know of a single creature besides a Nymph who can talk to trees! It should be pretty obvious I am one.”
“The elves,” he said, wielding a smart-aleck grin.
“Their kind are extinct now,” she returned, “So they can`t be counted for the sake of any type of conversation that isn`t a history lesson,” she sniffed. “Besides, that`s not the point! I talked to a tree, ergo, I am a nymph,” she said decisively. “Idiot,” she huffed.
He just shook his head. “You smell all wrong. There’s too much fire in your scent, you couldn’t be one. You can’t be a dryad either, unless you managed to contract with the legendary Fire Lake’s spirit and that gave you some new powers?”
She shook her head. “So obviously you aren’t Nymph or Dryad.” He paused and smoothed his beard. “I suppose it could make sense if you weren’t pure in race though,” he mused. She crossed her arms and turned away from him. The movement made her hair shift to the side, revealing a tiny one inch long horn on the side of her head. Before she realized his intent he’d moved toward her and grasped it. She gasped and fell on the ground, weak and boneless. He released her and moved back to the other side faster than her eyes could track.
